The Fiji Higher Education Commission said it is the only legal institution in Fiji that is authorized to accredit tertiary institutions.
The Commission Chairperson Dr Richard Wah said the Ministry of Education’s concerns will however be taken into account.
The Fiji Higher Education Commission is the only legal body to recognize and accredit higher level education qualifications.
The issue comes to light after the Ministry of Education’s concern with the quality of some qualifications that are obtained from USP and the University of Fiji.
“They themselves are not legally in a position to say their quality of qualifications is not appropriate because the government constituted body is the Higher Education Commission.” said Dr Wah
The Commission stated the Ministry’s issue should not be misconstrued between relevance and quality.
” As per the Ministry’s circulation there was a mention of being aligned to the framework. The only people who can align it to the framework are the staff of the Commission who are trained to do that.” said Dr Wah
However, Dr Wah said they are always open to discussions with stakeholders on any issue.
” The employers can decide that the quality are not sufficient for their purposes but in the country one of the things we are trying to do is to work with employers. For them to tell us what are the requirements and competencies for particular jobs and we will work with our providers to ensure these are done.” said Dr Wah
The Commission said they are continuously working on accrediting every higher education provider institution in the country.
” We are mindful of the criticisms that are happening in the industry especially the employers and we have a consultant coming in and to work and see how we can speed up the process of getting these qualifications accredited.” said Dr Wah
There are 1,300 tertiary institutions in the country. Of these, a little over 30 have been accredited by the Commission.